


may the bridges i have burnt light my way back home

by shakespeareslark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 18:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13370706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespeareslark/pseuds/shakespeareslark
Summary: And Jon will choose his own damnation ten times over, heaven and earth be damned because there’s no hope of salvation for either of them. His brother is his true north and Jon can do nothing but bend like the arrow of a compass towards him, both of them unable to turn away from the path of destruction that stretches ahead of them.





	may the bridges i have burnt light my way back home

It begins with them burning their world to the ground. But that’s not strictly true because really it begins with the heat of the summer sun soaking into his skin and making him drowsy, making his limbs heavy and his mind lethargic, and Robb’s hands sure and firm holding him down. He is seventeen years old and under the flavour of the cherry ice-cream his brother had been eating, Jon can taste only the ashes in his mouth that this will leave when everything is said and done.

“Stay still,” His brother had whispered against his lips and Jon obeys without question. He wants to fall to his knees before this boy, worship him like a young god because Jon’s never understood the power of religion until Robb kisses him and at last Jon knows what it is to feel strongly enough for something to want to kill for it. Robb’s tongue traces along his lips shly and Jon could set the world aflame if the other demanded it of him, would turn the matches on himself and burn himself alive at a word from his lips. Not that his brother would ever do such a thing; oh, this relationship is an inferno that will engulf them whole and leave them with nothing by the time it is done but it will never be purely of Robb’s volition. No; this is born of a spark they both helped to ignite and Jon will choose his own damnation ten times over, heaven and earth be damned because there’s no hope of salvation for either of them. He could no sooner give up Robb than he could stop breathing; if he was to be put down anywhere in the world, his feet would without fail blindly lead him back to the other. His brother is his true north and Jon can do nothing but bend like the arrow of a compass towards him, both of them unable to turn away from the path of destruction that stretches ahead of them. 

“You know what this will mean,” Jon whispers later, his fingers tracing down the line of his brother’s spine. The other makes a soft noise of contentment, long eyelashes dragging against the pillow as he opens his eyes to gaze up at him. Never again will Jon be able to look at his room without seeing Robb draped across his bed, the blankets pooled at his hips. Long after the other is gone, he’ll press his face into the sheets to trace a hint of his smell, press his fingertips to the places where the other touched and stare into the mirror at the dark marks left across his skin, haunted by a ghost that is still very much alive.

To his credit, Robb doesn’t try turn away from the truth that lies before them but faces it straight on. He tips his chin to the sky, an arrogant confidence on his face that Jon sees right through. “I know.” 

“We will have to live a lie; we can never tell anyone the truth. If they were to know-” 

“I know,” Robb repeats as he sits up, the blankets falling off him as his hands reach for Jon’s face and they do not speak anymore.  
________

“Do you love me?” Robb’s voice is as light as his hand tracing mindless patterns across Jon’s chest, blue eyes flicking up to meet dark. For a minute he is confused; that the other even needs to ask is almost unthinkable. Can he really not know that he is the sun which Jon orbits? Can he really not know that he is the gravity Jon can never break away from? Then Robb’s face twitches, the corners of his mouth curling up into a mischievous grin. 

“Yes,” The word tastes like honey as he shifts abruptly, hands reaching for Robb’s wrists to pin them above his head as his knees settle either side of his hips. Jon leans down, letting kisses fall like raindrops across Robb’s face. “Yes, yes, yes.” The older boy squirms under him, a bright laugh tearing itself from his lips as he tries unsuccessfully to throw Jon off. He is undeterred, hands fisting in Robb’s clothes to hold himself steady as his lips trip across his jaw. “I love you.” He breathes against the curve of his brother’s neck and Robb goes still at last, nose nuzzling at Jon’s temple.

“I love you too,” He answers quietly and they both try to ignore how Robb’s words fall flat in the otherwise silent room, sounding from his lips like poison Jon cannot help but swallow.  
________

Jon never finds out how Eddard Stark discovers the truth about their relationship; it comes as no surprise to him. The gods have always had a sick sense of humour and they’ve only ever had an ill-fated hand of cards in this game. It’s been six months since they first kissed and three since they stopped pretending they were both going to get out of this relationship intact. By the time he gets home, his brother is waiting in his room and Jon crosses the room in two strides to be at his side. There’s a weariness in his face that surely they’re both too young to know but his gaze is resolved when it meets Jon’s. “Pack your bags,” His brother says, his word a direct arrow to Jon’s heart. “We’re leaving tonight.” 

He nods mutely, falling to his knees to gather Robb into his arms. Already Jon can feel the heat of the flames licking at them, his body the only shield they have to protect them from the destruction that awaits. He never finds out what words were exchanged between father and son; what Ned offered, begged and said to try dissuade his son from this or whether Robb had wavered or hesitated on the edge of giving up everything for Jon. He is happier to not know, happier to let that secret die with them.

They had intended to leave under the cover of darkness but when they step out of the house, the sky above them is illuminated with colourful explosions. 

“Fireworks night. I forgot.” Robb breathes by his side and together they both look to the garden. Even from this distance, they can hear Sansa’s laugh drifting across to them, her hair glinting in the dim light like an earthbound mirror to the fire above them. By her side, Arya is a silhouette standing on the bench, obviously searching the garden for the missing two members of the family. Jon’s heart twists with love for his sister and his lips move in a silent prayer that she never comes to learn the truth about this night. Between the two girls are two smaller shapes; Bran and Rickon, the latter squealing and clapping his hands in delight at each explosion. The longing to join them is unimagionably painful is in its’ intensity and a glance at Robb’s face shows the same desperate hunger there. 

 

For a second, Jon lingers on the cusp of releasing them both from this path they are both willingly walking. Surely it’s not too late; they can pretend this never happened and go their separate ways. Surely they haven’t passed by the last chance to save themselves before they go over the edge. They can just walk across the few hundred metres that separate them from their siblings; find their places as bookends on either side. Tomorrow Robb can talk to their father and tell him that the madness has passed and they’ve decided not to go through with this.

Jon is opening his mouth to say something when Robb turns away abruptly, his shoulders hunched. He closes his mouth, takes one last look and together they set off into the night, burning their bridges behind them.

___________

The first few months, they cling to each other like sole survivors of some terrible wreck. They have no savings and nowhere to go; what little money they have disappears fast. They sleep in burnt out and abandoned houses, staring up at the stars through collapsed ceilings and washing with cold water from a bucket. Robb manages to find them both work with a quarry manager who is willing to ignore their ages and their obviously made-up backstory in order to underpay them. The work is tiring and gruelling and their paychecks are barely enough to get by but neither of them complain and within a year they’ve managed to scrape together enough for rent for a tiny, dirty flat. They fall asleep to the sound of police-sirens and their neighbours either making love or having loud, screaming arguments, but they are together. They argue and cook dinner together, drift from odd-job to odd-job, press each other up against walls and fall asleep together each night. As far as anyone around them knows, they are no different than any other couple and Jon is beginning to think of their situation as something approaching happiness when it all falls down around their ears.

___________

“Robb.” The clear bag that is balanced between them on the ratty couch seems too small to hold so much importance, though it looks no less dangerous than it did when Robb first pulled it from his pocket thirty minutes ago.

“You’re overreacting.” His brother’s voice is flat, his expression tightly impassive opposite him. The past few months have thinned his face and hardened him; when Jon looks at him now, he can see almost no sign of the boy he fell in love with. I ruined you, he thinks with panic, I took you and I used you and ruined you and now there isn’t going to be anything left of either of us by the time we hit the ground. 

“Do you even-“ He begins but Robb seems to know what he is going to ask, a needle still in its case appearing from his pocket in the same manner the plastic bag had been unearthed. Neither of them move; Robb watching Jon carefully. The room is almost in darkness by the time he stands, the sun gone behind a cloud as he walks to their bedroom. His brother’s gaze is heavy when he returns and his throat jumps when he swallows hard, blue eyes watching as Jon sets the belt down on the table between them. He unbuttons the cuffs of his shirt, silently beginning to roll it up and Jon says a silent prayer that there’ll be something left of them to save when this is all over.

___________

It’s two months later when he gets the call and Jon immediately assumes the worst when “Robb’s work” appears on his caller ID. The man on the other end is kind, reassuring away the panic that Jon cannot hide in his voice. No, nothing happened. It’s just been a week since Robb last came to work and they’re all concerned. Jon barely remembers what he says, spinning some story about a stomach bug and promises to talk to Robb, thanking the man for his concern. He doesn’t know how he gets through the rest of the day; he is unable to recall a single thing that occurred after the phone call and he is almost surprised to find himself standing in front of their door at the end of the day. Jon lets himself into the flat, tossing his keys aside as he toes off his shoes. He finds Robb on the balcony, a cigarette between his lips and a needle beside him, and collapses into the chair opposite him, leaning over to steal the cigarette. “Your work called.”

“Oh,” Robb says, his voice tiny and guilty as Jon passes it back. He exhales smoke out of the corner of his lips, gaze turning to look over the rooftops. The last time he’d heard that tone had been when Robb had accidentally destroyed an art project that Jon had spent hours working on when they had been seven. Sometimes the hardest part of their relationship was that no matter how far he rewound the tape, there wasn’t a single thing in his life that Robb hadn’t been tangled in. It was difficult to tell how much of his feelings was love and how much was simply that he didn’t know how to exist without the other.

He takes another cigarette from the pack, lighting it. Jon’s eyes follow Robb’s to where the city lights are just starting to come on, the sun setting in the distance. There is a long silence before Jon speaks again, “I want to break up.” His voice comes out strange and distant to his own ears and it is difficult to believe that he is really saying those words, even though he practiced saying them the entire way home.

The cigarette tumbles from Robb’s fingers as he turns to face Jon, and he watches it spin through the air towards the street below them until the glowing embers disappear from sight. “What?”

Jon cannot look at him, cannot see the betrayal or the heartbreak in his eyes as he repeats evenly and steadily, “I want to break up.” 

“Did… Did I do something? Did something happen?”

“No.” Jon says and his voice cracks halfway through the word. “But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch us spiral like this.” He lifts his hand, his fingers shaking as he points at the other with his cigarette and there’s a look on Robb’s face that cuts deep, “You started this. You were the one who kissed me first. You began it. I’m ending it.”

“Jon.” There’s a raw agony in Robb’s voice that he never imagined was possible and it goes through him like a knife. But Jon takes the pain and pushes it down, not letting it touch him yet. Later when he’s alone and this is all over, he’ll let himself feel it all, let it tear him apart. But for now, he swallows it back and says,

“No. I’m done, Robb. Look at us. Look at what we’ve done to each other, look at what a disaster we are. We can’t keep going on like this. We can’t pretend that we aren’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to each other.” He runs a shaking hand across his face, pushing back dark curls from his face, unable to hold his gaze any longer, “I can’t keep doing this, I need to walk away from this.”

His brother shifts, landing across Jon’s lap, their lips meeting desperately. He arches up into him, one hand tangling in Robb’s bright locks as they kiss over and over. “I love you.” Robb whispers against his lips and his mouth tastes like salt and ashes. It’s every goodbye he’s ever said at once, and pulling away is the hardest thing he’s ever done. The other stays on the balcony until he’s done packing his things and Jon sneaks out the door without saying goodbye like a coward, afraid that he will be unable to go through with this if he has to look Robb in the eyes again.

___________

They manage to successfully avoid each other for two months; Jon quits his job and picks up another working in a café on the other side of town. He doesn’t talk to any of their old friends, avoids the streets they used to walk together and returns home each evening to an empty apartment. He’s just starting to build an entire life that doesn’t revolve around his brother when Sansa calls him a week before Christmas to invite him to a family dinner; the first that he’s been invited to since the night they walked out of that house. He doesn’t want to know if their recent break-up is the catalyst to them being welcomed back into the family. Jon is silent for an entire minute before accepting. He spends the night before it panicking at the thought of seeing Robb, then on the actual night he hides out in the corners of the house he’d once called home, sipping on a drink and chatting to Arya. It’s only when they sit down for dinner that Robb appears; a pale, frighteningly thin ghost of the person his brother had once been. The rest of the family pretend not to notice the forced gaiety to the party, everyone’s smile painted on brightly. 

Jon barely touches his food, tasting nothing but cardboard. He has eyes for no-one else but Robb; his dark eyes watching as his brother toys with his food and excuses himself early. Jon waits a few minutes before following; he finds Robb as he knows he will, in his room tugging a belt tight around his arm. Their eyes meet and Jon crosses the room in three strides to crash back into his orbit and when the dust clears over the flaming wreckage they’re going to go down in, maybe they’ll be found like this with Robb’s tears on his cheek and their bodies pressed close together that each heartbeat seems an echo of the other’s. 

“You-“

“I know.” His lips find Robb’s temple and Jon breathes in the smell of his shampoo and home, the centre of his world to which he will always return no matter how far he tries to run in the opposite direction. They are cursed and damned sevenfold by every one of the gods surely, there can be no other explanation for how they came to fall in love. He is almost tempted to laugh as he cradles his brother in his arms; they’ll both find finger-shaped bruises from how tightly they are clinging to each other later. All of his premonitions had turned out to be true; there is very little of them both left to put back together after impact. But somehow they will rebuild each other together, fill up the jagged cracks left behind and continue on.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! please leave kudos or constructive criticism. thanks.x


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